Den genomskådande blicken

Abstract

“The Perceptive Gaze. Theatricality in Rut Hillarp’s Blodförmörkelse” This paper provides an analytical study of the self-dramatization of the female subject in Rut Hillarp’s 1951 novel Blodförmörkelse (Blood Eclipse) with a focus on theatricality as the foundation of the woman’s relationship with the world around her. With her male counterpart as the muse – the idealized object – the woman is the creator and work of her own story, an actress on her own stage, and through her conscious staging of reality she reintroduces certain social constructs as arbitrary. Building on previous literature on the novel, the author examines the evolution of the woman’s sense of selfhood using Stanley Cavell's notion of theatricality and Adriana Caverero's theory of the narratable self. Furthermore, the woman's theatricalization of being itself, where being appears as an act of self-representation that must be recognized by the other, is explored. Finally, by discussing how this is expressed in relation to the woman’s perception of self and the other, the role of theatricality in the woman’s journey through the inner unknown to the interpersonal is illustrated. Forever the other, the woman becomes a stranger – even in relation to herself.